What are my best lunch options between Houston and NOLA? I'm hoping for something Cajun. I'm imagining chicken and sausage gumbo, or boudin, or other country eats. We love spicy, but we'll have our son in tow, so we'll need to go someplace that has some non-spicy option.

Speaking of ESK, does anybody have current information about the future S. Lamar location? I thought it was going into the space formerly occupied by Casita Taco, but someone on the neighborhood listserv reported seeing a "For Rent" sign on that space.

I have some friends coming in from New York and Seattle, and two of them are vegan. I would customarily entertain my guests by plying them full of barbecue and Mexican food all weekend, but I'll need to locate some good vegan options this time. Depending on the menu that day, Casa de Luz can be good. What are some of your other favorite vegan dishes or vegan-friendly restaurants in Austin? If they also serve non-vegan food, all the better.

Kurobuta is the Japanese name for Berkshire pork. Locally, I know Peach Creek Farm has it at the downtown farm's market for about $6/pound (http://www.peachcreekfarm.us/pork.php). I think Central Market might also sell Berkshire pork.

I'm pretty sure either Richardson or Peach Creek Farms would sell you a whole hog, and I've had delicious pork from both. Somebody else suggested Sebastien Bonneu (Countryside Farms), but I think he sells wild boar, which may or may not suit your needs.

Fuddruckers? Really? I know they had in-house butcher shops in the early-mid 90's, but those windows that used to look into a room full on hanging cow carcases are now just display cases with plastic replicas of hamburger patties. I assumed that, at best, they had centralized their meat grinding operations, and more likely, that they now buy from a mass supplier.

I was reading the Manhattan board a couple of weeks ago and people were grousing about how lobster was overpriced at $9 a pound. Quality Seafood and CM were charging twice that last time I checked. Let me know if you find a good source.

I made it back to Tony C's last weekend and it wasn't as good as my first visit. We ordered the marinara, but with fresh mozarella and basil, and we asked for it well done. The good news is that the basil is, indeed, added after the pizza is removed from the oven. But the crust did not hold up well under extra baking. It got more crunchy than crisp/chewy and lacked in flavor. I think that the olive oil on the margherita helped in that department. I'm guessing the flour doesn't have enough gluten to give it that extra chew. My wife thought the marinara sauce was too sweet, but I didn't have a problem with it. I still thought it was better than other pizzas you can get around here, but maybe they have consistency problems. Or maybe the margherita is the thing to stick to.

I recently noticed that the Madam Mam's Westgate location has a list of gluten free dishes on the wall next to the register. It seems intended for the servers, since it listed dish numbers only, and not their names.

Just returned from Tony C's and I can corroborate reports that this is the real thing. My wife and I used to live in Brooklyn, and frequented Grimaldi's. This is the first pizza I've had in Austin that is even in the same food group. We ordered the Margherita, which just has tomatoes, basil, and fresh (and excellent) mozzarella on it. We added kalamata olives. The crust is the type you can only get with a coal oven. I won't claim it was as good as Grimaldi's, but it was really really good. The crust could have been a little more charred, but we were told that they've been trying to hold back on that after getting complaints from people about "burnt" pizza. I hope they don't get too discouraged. I think the crust could also be slightly chewier. But really, I'm nitpicking here. If you share my taste in pizza, it's definitely worth the half hour drive from downtown Austin.

I can't comment on the amount of sauce, since we ordered a white pie,. But I generally don't like too much sauce on my pizza, so I'd probably consider that a feature, not a bug.

It's true. Hoover's has some of the best jerk chicken I've ever eaten. The seasonings are more of a dry rub and the chicken is smoked. A friend who visited Jamaica told me that it's more like what they have there than what we were used to eating (in Brooklyn at, for example, Brawta). Really excellent stuff.

However, I think the Hoover's address listed above is for the financial reporting company, not the restaurant.

Also, I don't think I've seen a beef patty since I moved here from Brooklyn. Sorry.

Not to go too far off topic... I've never eaten at Hill's but I do like thyme in my chicken and dumplings (and have never thought thyme was bitter). I must not be alone since Cook's Illustrated includes a teaspoon fresh minced in their recipe. So to each their own, I guess.

I've never had the chicken and dumplings at Hoover's either, since they only have it on Wednesdays.

The C&D at Threagill's is fine. Nothing special, but not terrible... middle of the road. It would probably satiate a craving. Thursdays only, I think.

I don't understand why nobody in town has C&D on their regular menu. It seems like it's always a once-a-week special. I had a craving like this about a month ago and ended up just making some at home (from the aforementioned Cook's Illustrated recipe).

Chicago-style and Vienna Beef hotdogs aren't my favorite. I'm partial to the NY style / Sabrett's. But I have seen a place on the west side of S. Lamar just North of the Brodie Oaks shopping center that purports to sell Chicago-style dogs.

My family made the drive up to Plugerville for lunch today, and it turns out that this is a different Ethiopian restaurant in the same space formerly occupied by Addis. The new place is called Taste of Ethiopia and is by far the best Ethiopian food I've had in Austin. I've eaten at the best places in NYC and DC and this is the first food I've found in Austin that can sate that craving. We ordered the Kitfo, which is a spicy ground beef mixed with seasoned clarified butter and mitmita (a ground, hot pepper). The meat had great flavor and was served with a homemade cheese, like a farmers cheese, and a small portion of gomen (collard greens). We also got the vegetarian sampler, which includes misr wot (red lentils with berbere sauce), shiro (buttery chickpeas), gomen (differently spiced than the gomen that came with the kitfo -- more sweet spices and less heat), fosolia (carrots and green beans) and tikil gomen (cabbage and carrots). It's usually my least favorite of the Ethiopian veggie dishes, but I thought the shiro was the best one today. They were all terrific. It's maybe a notch below my favorite Ethiopian restaurants, but I think it would be in my rotation even if I were in DC or NYC. LIke Queen Makeda in DC, you can taste the love that goes into the food. The menu is definitely more limited than other places, but it has most of my favorites, and I actually prefer to have fewer dishes if that means they're done better.

The owner, Winnie, and her husband run the place. Winnie takes care of both the cooking and the front of the house. They were unbelievably warm, welcoming, and accomodating. Despite the long drive, we'll be back. A lot. I really hope some of you will try to make it there, too. The food is great, but the location is terrible. It would be tragic if we lost our one good Ethiopian restaurant.

On to less encouraging news... we tried Karibu last weekend and thought it was, well, meh. The flavors were there, but were all very muted. The veggies were all served colder than room temperature, which didn't help matters. If you're going to serve something cold, you really need to turn up the seasoning to make it come through. Everything was good enough, but was a shadow of what it could be. The ingredients are all organic, and you could tell that all the veggies were really fresh. The meat in the Key Wot was also of higher quality than usual. They had only been open for a week or two, so I'm going to give them another shot. The owner, Solomon, was interested in listening to feedback, so I hope things get running smoothly and we'll also have a good option closer to home.

I just got the Alinea cookbook and am excited to try some of the recipes, but it calls for some pretty strange ingredients -- see http://www.postmodernpantry.com/wiki for a list. I particularly want to find tapioca maltodextrin. This stuff can be found online, but does anybody know of a local source?